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Regulator for England lacks powers to deal with what the public accounts committee calls an ‘out-of-control plague’
The Environment Agency is too weak to tackle an “out-of-control plague” of waste dumping, a powerful group of MPs has said.
The public accounts committee (PAC) said the EA had gaps in its powers and intelligence gathering which meant it was not set up to deal effectively with the rise in waste dumping.
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A long-running experiment in Colorado provides an ‘alarming’ view of how rapidly unchecked global heating could transform fragile ecosystems
Every summer, people descend on the wildflower capital of Colorado to see grasslands flush with corn lilies, aspen sunflowers and sub-alpine larkspur. In January 1991, scientists set up a unique experiment in these Rocky Mountain meadows. It was one of the first (and longest running) to work out how the changing climate would affect an ecosystem.
At the time, it was believed a temperature increase could lead to longer, lusher grasses. But instead of flourishing, the grasses and wildflowers started to disappear, replaced by sage brush. The experimental meadows morphed into a desert-like scrubland. Even the fungi in the soils were transformed by heat.
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Constituents’ frustration with Richard Tice reflects growing problem for party and its leaders’ climate-sceptic stance
“The worst part of it was the smell,” says Audrey Crook, 58. A full-time carer who lives with her 20-year-old son, Crook woke up at 11pm one night to find a foot of flood water on the ground floor of her home. “It was like black water. It had sewage and everything in it, it was absolutely disgusting.”
Crook’s home – along with more than 30 others on Wyberton West Road and Park Road in Boston, Lincolnshire – was flooded in January last year when heavy rain swept across the region, raising river levels and exceeding flood defences.
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GB Energy’s Jürgen Maier says production could bring economic benefits and give supply chains ‘time to transition’ to renewables
The head of the UK’s national green energy champion has joined other high-profile renewable energy leaders in making the case for more North Sea oil and gas production as the government braces for an energy cost crisis.
The GB Energy boss, Jürgen Maier, used a social media post on LinkedIn to reject the claim that more North Sea oil and gas could help to bring down energy costs, which have soared as the war in Iran has escalated.
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The report also recommends government do more to make tech companies liable for ‘psychosocial harms’
Australia’s climate change and energy “information ecosystem” is fuelling conflict in communities, with misinformation and disinformation confusing the public, slowing renewable energy projects and undermining policy responses to the climate crisis, a cross-party Senate inquiry has concluded.
The inquiry’s final report, released on Tuesday evening, recommended the government do more to make tech companies liable for “psychosocial harms” spread on their platforms.
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Hove, East Sussex: Loading it up with many different species – oak, elder, hazel, willow and birch – has turned it into a thriving ecosystem
In the garden, the log pile is a whole world. I hear frogs croaking from within it, I watch wrens foraging for insects. It’s a mixture of different species: apple from neighbours who were cutting a tree down, walnut from a pollarded giant at the allotment, hawthorn lost to a storm.
There’s also oak, elder, hazel, willow and birch. I stop tree surgeons and ask if I can take a log or two, replacing the sadness of another felled tree with the hope of the life its dead wood will support. I like taking new logs home for my log pile.
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Exclusive: UK regulator makes U-turn over TalkTV and TalkRadio complaints after claims it let some broadcasters ‘spout dangerous climate lies’
A U-turn by the UK’s broadcasting regulator Ofcom means it will investigate complaints of climate change denial on television and radio for the first time since 2017. The move marks a victory for campaigners who have accused the regulator of allowing some broadcasters “to spout dangerous climate lies” and “flout” rules on accuracy and impartiality.
Complaints about programmes on TalkTV and TalkRadio were assessed by Ofcom, which then decided not to investigate, the same result as more than 1,000 other climate complaints since 2020. However, after a letter from the Good Law Project (GLP) in January, requesting an explanation for the rejections, Ofcom said it had withdrawn its original decision and would “consider afresh” the complaints.
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Small farmers and community-led conservation groups are trying to protect one of the biggest semi-arid forests in the world – under threat from expanding agriculture, wildfires and the ‘logging mafia’
Jorge Luna stands in a piece of Argentina’s Gran Chaco forest that he calls his own. Birds sing as he surveys skyscraping molle trees, known as pepper trees, palo santo and algarrobo, or carob trees. “It’s good wood,” says Luna, 55. “I was about to cut them down.”
Selling timber promises quick and easy money in the sprawling ecosystem that covers parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. But it comes at a steep price, contributing to rampant deforestation and irreversible damage to the forest.
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The fishery is regulated but experts say it is wrecking the food chain. Gordon Peake joined a Sea Shepherd mission to observe the giant ships compete for catch
It is bitterly cold on the deck of the Allankay and the bosun, Luca Massari, is checking that none of us are wearing contact lenses before we descend into Antarctic waters. There is a risk, he warns, that lenses will freeze solid over the eyes. Massari himself is prepared for his surroundings. He is wearing thick goggles that make him look like an Olympic ski jumper.
Massari is a burly, heavily tattooed veteran of the environmental organisation Sea Shepherd, which campaigns against exploiting the oceans. His deck team are preparing to launch the ship’s small boat, which Massari will helm. Eight of us are bundled in bright red dry suits, helmets and lifejackets; the average time to survive hypothermia in this wind-whipped water is just five minutes.
The Allankay sailed to Coronation Island from New Zealand to document the krill fishing. Photograph: Alice Bacou/Sea Shepherd
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Sixty years after the discovery of a colony of Juan Fernández fur seals, previously thought to be extinct, a landmark agreement extends ‘no take’ zone around the wildlife-rich archipelago
Six decades ago, pioneering oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle made a bittersweet discovery while diving off Chile’s oceanic islands with the US National Science Foundation vessel, the Anton Bruun. She found the remains of a baby fur seal, one of the world’s most isolated aquatic mammals.
Endemic to the Juan Fernández archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean, and once prized for its fur and meat, the species, Arctocephalus philippii, was believed to have been hunted to extinction in the 19th century. But, Earle said: “A baby must have a mum and dad somewhere.”
Pioneering oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle. Photograph: Andy Mann/Blue Marine Foundation
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